too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
It started as a scribble
in my yearbook
and ended
with an apology,
of sorts:
I wish I’d been more,
held your hand
when it mattered
and even
when it didn’t.
Ink lasts longer
than schoolyard dreams,
wilted
before their bloom.
Notes we wrote
lend breath
to ghosts,
long after
pens fall still.
In this cold place
I see your face
as it was behind the gym,
where your lips
once tasted
of blackberries
and sunshine.
Ryan Stone
And these are my failings:
a wild smile always leads my mind
to the kiss hiding behind it
and sometimes to plot
the shortest route there.
Did I say sometimes? I lie a bit, too.
And I tend to zone out to small-talk –
there are enough idle words
in the world.
And I can’t warm to people,
despite how I try.
I’m lying again – I don’t try at all.
I’d much rather hide
with Lana Del Rey,
alone in the dark
drinking vodka,
ignoring that night
in my fourteenth year
when my father got drunk,
made me drive his ute home –
the soft bump and loud bark,
the crimson accusation,
coagulating on his tyre
next morning.
Ryan Stone
Written for National Poetry Month 2016 @ The Music In It – Failures
First published in Poppy Road Review, May 2016.
The last leaves are golden,
most have already flown. Branches
hang bare beneath ashen skies.
Not so different from when you climbed,
hand over slow hand, waging a war
inside your young mind. One leaf
breaks free, hangs on a moment,
before leaping into the maelstrom.
I imagine a short fall,
sharp jerk and silence;
but it’s only a leaf and spirals away,
no note to mark its passing.
– Ryan Stone
Remember school days and how we would play
like there was no tomorrow?
Now the castles we made
are the price we must pay
or flounder in oceans of sorrow.
Roaming wild and free, building houses in trees
as worlds waltzed to discordant tunes–
like a zephyr through grass,
gilded summer days passed,
left us flayed under Cheshire moons.
Wooden sword fights and valiant knights,
pirates, the Pan and his Bell,
faded from dreams,
rowed ungentle streams,
to where the real monsters dwell.
I’ve climbed faraway trees, seen fair Honah-Lee,
never never thought I’d grow old.
Now the pied piper calls —
as the last curtain falls,
leafless, I’ll trip into the wold.
Ryan Stone
I drink all day
and then strike out
along that winding road,
where shadows flit
by leafy bough
and twilight waits
for no-one;
where failing light
births fickle fiends
who writhe and tempt
the absent mind.
In deepen wood
where mildew clings
to night’s cool breath,
a parting kiss
for seasons
long since flown.
Ryan Stone
In the photo I keep in my wallet
you’re smiling. No hint of ghosts
in the glint of your eye.
You’re sitting on a riverbank
weaving a daisy chain
I wore until it crumbled–
linking flower to flower
with the unblemished certainty
that beauty and vows are forever.
Ryan Stone
There’s a lot going on in the world
today. My TV stays off
for sanity’s sake.
Another school. Child. Innocent.
Betrayal. And fear, like a flag
hanging over it all.
When sorrow engulfs me, I almost feel guilty–
how does an old paw print
eclipse any of that?
But my sphere spins slowly, the breeze
carries ghosts, forgotten barks—
long walks by the coast.
Ryan Stone
Pa, I see you in your shed–
unaware of dusk settling
over your garden, painting
your pink crabapple blossoms
grey. I see you bend, to squint
at some small imperfection
marring the wooden soldier
you’ve spent the whole day carving,
hands slow-dancing to a tune
no-one else can hear. Later
Ma will shake her head, dismiss
your need for perfect contours
and seamless joins as foolish,
not understanding a man,
a soldier or a husband
is only ever as strong
as his weakest part.
Ryan Stone
Clock hands circle lethargically. Heels
clack, a distant speaker hisses –
muted, surreal.
I shift on a green vinyl chair, eyes
trace an arc from clock to window.
Outside, a succubus sun
kisses children at play.
At my father’s bedside, both of us
wish I wasn’t. I despise myself
for watching the minutes, and him
for teaching me to. Broken
conversations keep awkward vigil
for something long dead.
Ryan Stone
From my porch
I watch thunderheads
battering high noon
into bruised twilight.
I see you climb
from under eaves,
awakened
by a pressure change.
As the storm inhales
you leap and spin,
leap and spin
your web — knowing
your time to build
is fleeting.
Ryan Stone
days of stone 